Radio Shack taken to the woodshed

An independent RadioShack store in Montana is standing firm, refusing RadioShack Corp. headquarters’ demand to stop giving away a firearm with each satellite dish sale — a 5-month-old promotion that has proved widely popular and garnered national attention.

Now before anyone starts with howls of indignation directed at Radio Shack, let’s consider that this is an educational opportunity. I doubt that many of the MBAs running The Shack have any direct experience with firearms. In fact, their perceptions are probably limited to what they’ve seen at the movies and on TV. If that version of gun ownership were anything close to accurate, then their reaction to Mr. Levy’s sales promotion would be understandable. We gun owners need to educate Radio Shack’s management about gun ownership is really like. They need to understand that there are firearms in half of all US households. They also need to know that approximately one third of the US population owns guns, and thus a sizable portion of their customer base, owns guns. The vast majority of these guns are owned without incident. They provide many Radio Shack customers with security and enjoyment.

So before you fire off a nasty-gram to Radio Shack, consider that they are simply ignorant of the realities of American gun ownership.